Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [257]
Her finger found the cut on his cheek, and she gasped slightly. “I did this, didn’t I?”
Raoden nodded. “As I said—I had no idea how good of a fencer you are.”
Sarene ran her finger down the wound. “It confused me terribly when I couldn’t find the wound. Why does the illusion show your expressions, but not a cut?”
“It’s complicated,” Raoden said. “You have to link each muscle in the face with its companion in the illusion. I could never have figured it out myself—the equations are all in one of my books.”
“But you altered the illusion so quickly last night, changing from Kaloo to Raoden.”
He smiled. “That’s because I had two illusions on, one connected to my undershirt and the other to my coat. As soon as I dissolved the one on the top, the one underneath showed. I’m just glad it looks enough like me that the others recognized it. There weren’t, of course, any equations describing how to create my own face—I had to figure that out on my own.”
“You did a good job.”
“I extrapolated from my Elantrian face, telling the illusion to use it as a base.” He smiled. “You’re a lucky woman, having a man who can change faces at any time. You’ll never get bored.”
Sarene snorted. “I like this one just fine. This is the face that loved me when it thought I was an Elantrian, all rank and title abandoned.”
“You think you can get used to this?” Raoden asked.
“Raoden, I was going to marry Roial last week. He was a dear old man, but he was so incredibly homely that rocks looked handsome when he stood next to them.”
Raoden laughed. Despite everything—Telrii, Hrathen, and poor Roial’s demise—his heart was jubilant.
“What are they doing?” Sarene said, looking back at the palace.
Raoden turned to follow her view—an action that bumped Sarene forward slightly. She reacted by locking a deathlike grip on Raoden’s shoulder, her fingers biting into his flesh. “Don’t do that!”
“Oops,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “I forgot about your fear of heights.”
“I am not afraid of heights,” Sarene said, still holding on to his arm. “I just get dizzy.”
“Of course,” Raoden said, squinting at the palace. He could barely make out a group of soldiers doing something in the grounds before the building. They were laying out blankets or sheets of some sort.
“It’s too far,” Sarene said. “Where is Ashe?”
Raoden reached up and sketched Aon Nae—a large circular character—in the air before them. When he was finished, the air inside Aon Nae’s circle rippled like water, then cleared to show a magnified view of the city. Placing his palm in the center of the circle, Raoden maneuvered the Aon until it was pointing at the palace. The view unblurred itself, and they were able to see the soldiers with such detail that they could read their rank insignias.
“That’s useful,” Sarene noted as Raoden raised the Aon slightly. The soldiers were indeed laying out sheets—sheets with what appeared to be bodies on them. Raoden grew cold as he moved the disk along the line of corpses. The last two corpses in the row were familiar.
Sarene gasped in horror as Eondel’s and Telrii’s dead faces came into focus.
CHAPTER 56
“He attacked late last night, my lady,” Ashe explained.
The remaining members of their group—Kiin, Lukel, and Shuden—were gathered atop the house, watching as Raoden focused his Aon spyglass on the funeral pyres being built in the palace courtyard.
Baron Shuden sat morosely on the stone roof, shaking his head in disbelief. Sarene held the young Jindo’s hand in an attempt to provide comfort, painfully aware of how difficult the last few days must have been for him. His future father-in-law had turned out to be a traitor, Torena had reportedly disappeared, and now his best friend was dead.
“He was a brave man,” Kiin said, standing beside Raoden.
“That was never in question,” Raoden said. “His actions were foolish nonetheless.”
“He did it for honor, Raoden,” Sarene said, looking up from the despondent Shuden. “Telrii murdered a great man last night—Eondel acted to avenge